Digging the Issues and Concerns in Subject Access Towards Discoverability of Information and Resources

There is an information explosion in this computer age due to the rapid developments of information and communications technology. As a result, research and studies are quickly published because of faster printing and open access publishing. With these, access to information and resources is somewhat compromised. Without access, these collections are meaningless to educators, researchers, scholars, and other information users. Thus, this study prompted to determine the: 1) level of familiarity in the fundamental principles of subject cataloging; 2) level of usage familiarity of: a) grammar and code of relationships, b) types of subject headings and subdivisions, and c) authority tools; and 3) level of issues or concerns of librarians in assigning subject headings. On the level of familiarity on the fundamental principles of subject cataloging, findings revealed that the respondents are: 1) very familiar with the main objectives of subject cataloging, that is, to list in one uniform word or phrase all the materials on a given subject that a library has in its collection, and control the terms to be used in assigning subjects to materials; 2) extremely familiar on the first and last steps in subject analysis, that is, to examine first the library material at hand, and to use the decided keywords to go over the subject authority lists to identify appropriate headings; and very familiar on deciding on several keywords that could represent the subject; and 3) very familiar with the basic principles of subject headings. On the level of usage familiarity of grammar and code of relationships, types of subject headings, and authority tools, the study affirmed that the respondents are: 1) very familiar in assigning grammar of subject headings; 2) very familiar in the grammar, and code of relationships of subject headings; and 3) extremely familiar with the names of persons/corporations/meetings, and topical subject headings. On the level of issues or concerns of librarians in assigning subject headings, the respondents are moderately concerned or have an issue with all the different aspects of assigning subject headings. In order to efficiently and effectively retrieve information, issues and concerns in subject access should be addressed by catalogers